In the present day, standards are evolving to accommodate wireless communications over heterogeneous networks. In some scenarios, a wireless device user coupled to a public land mobile network (PLMN) may wish to connect to a local home or business network, whether the user is present at a location within the home network or while at a location remote from the home network. To facilitate local network access for a user equipment (UE) owner, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has defined basic functionality for local network access in a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard referred to as Local Internet Protocol (IP) Access (LIPA) (see release 11, Technical Specification 22.220 v11.2.0; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Service requirements for Home Node B (HNB) and Home eNode B (HeNB); September 2011) (hereinafter referred to as “LIPA.” In particular, LIPA signifies the capability of a mobile station (or “user equipment” (UE)) to obtain access to a local residential/enterprise IP network (herein also termed a local network or home network) that is connected to one or more localized base stations termed home eNodeBs or H(e)NBs. LIPA allows a UE to connect to devices in the local network—e.g. printers, video cameras, or a local web-server.
In addition to using LIPA, a network operator that operates a macro network may, e.g. as a chargeable user service, also wish to provide access to a user's local femtocell network. Access to the user's local network when a UE is under coverage of the macro network has been described in LIPA, TS 22.220 section 5.8, under the name of “Managed Remote Access to home based network” (MRA). From user's perspective LIPA and MRA describe the same service, namely access to a local network, with the difference centering on whether the UE is under coverage of a macro network base station (or eNodeB ((e)NB)) or under control of the femtocell base station (H(e)NB).
However, users may be very reluctant to deploy an H(e)NB that is provisioned with MRA, since this may effectively delegate access control management of their home or enterprise network to a 3rd party. Therefore, implementation of an H(e)NB with MRA may require improvements for a hosting party access control to ensure robust, consistent and secure implementation.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed.